


Spotlight

by Seashell_babble



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M, Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-02 22:27:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5266076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seashell_babble/pseuds/Seashell_babble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Variations on a heterotopian encounter</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A light that never goes out

**Author's Note:**

> That’s my first time! 
> 
> I never pictured them as a happy couple, but I thought their tension had to explode at some point, and given the pace of the show I figured it would only happen well post – canon. 
> 
> My head canon says that after where the show left they grow closer but at some point they split apart. And when they meet again, after a long time, funny things happen – sexual, weird, or just corny.
> 
> The potential dynamics seemed endless, so I just picked a few for a series of short stories, all playing with different versions of that idea. Some are a bit maxed out, others closer to the tone of the show.
> 
> Sorry for any grammar errors.
> 
> Please comment, even if you hate it, I’ll appreciate every kind of feedback! 
> 
> First chapter title taken from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cD4oLk_D0

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cD4oLk_D0

 

He never thought she'd play shenanigans, but then, they've grown apart for a while.

He doesn't really know how he ended up there, pushing her chest against the volume of the car. That it came down to pointless yelling and substantial swearing was fair enough, but he has no memory of those transactions of theirs being that physical.  
She hasn't either. But she's far too angry to analyze.

 

He called her, and she came.  
He called her from a booth, for god's sake. He needed help, _her_ help since there was no - one else he dared to call _in strict confidence_ in the middle of the night and ask to come and fetch him from wherever he had - _again_ \- ended up adrift. There was some elaborate story of how he'd gotten there or why he couldn't hitch back from the spot, but she didn't care.

It had been almost two years since she'd last spoken to him, more than one since she'd last seen him at all. There hadn't been any shouting, or doors slammed, or things thrown between them. Anything like a big fight. Just silence.

 

("You might as well be leaving her unemployed", Roger had said in a rare spark of insight, "you can't blame her for her grudge."  
"Bullshit!" he'd protested, not really understanding what all the fuss was about.  
He'd been too pleased by the course of events to take any time to delve into thin skin issues.)

 

Her eyebrows form perfect semicircles, as she watches his hand slowly rise from her chest to her collarbone. Nothing else moves - their time - out has frozen time perfectly still. 

"You're not going to strangle me", she points out alarmingly placid.

"No."

She lifts her face up, extremely solemn all of a sudden. Still blushed from the shouting. He's leaned over her _so_ close.

Her voice goes three octaves down.

"Then what's really keeping you?"

 

(She hadn't held a _grudge_. She lost her promotion that year and went on to quit. Don tried to set things straight a couple of times, but she was unshakable. He'd shrugged it off, _it wouldn't be like this forever. Something would happen_. Nothing had.)

 

His eye narrow, then he shakes his head. 

"No."

He's sincere, but doesn't move his hand away.

She smirks. And torpidly raises up on her toes, so that her whisper can effectively drill his brain.

" _Love_" , she says, "_is not love which alters when it alteration finds_."

 

There was a time he'd never have bought this, let alone fallen for it, but right now he can't think of anything worse that can happen, and he's exhausted, and out of context, and boy has he missed her.

"You told me to never mistake myself for Shakespeare, but all your advice I've thrown to waste."

She barely has the chance to finish the sentence, as her mouth is capped by his. 

 

* * *

 

While Peggy was driving, she thought she knew better. Which proved right the minute he decided it was a good idea to start pestering her about how they _should talk, at last_ , how _that charade_ couldn't go on any longer. She kept driving with her gaze fixed on the road.

" We _don't_ talk."

Then, just as the city's shape sharpened in view, he thought another fine idea was to grab the wheel from her hands, turning it to the right into the first alley he saw. She had just enough time to brake and rushed screaming out of the car.

 

There had to be a way, she thought, to hurt him as much. They'd been going in circles and bumped every couple of years, not so much colliding as sliding into each other's track, deeper each time. He'd been there, in his way - _their_ way - so long, she'd believed he was for good.

Maybe, the lure of control had proved enough to set her behind that wheel after all.

There had been a time when she'd felt the world was going to crash. By that night, Reagan was the king and she was a director in one of the ten biggest agencies in the country. She knew it took a hell of a lot more for the world to show the faintest cracks. 

 

* * *

 

She climbs on him as he pushes her up against the car. For a moment she starts at his smell; then smiling, she opts for the thought of how little it took. It's just a second that he catches her eye off guard, and he knows.

"You want _that_?"

He should just drop her down and leave, but he's already halfway out of his pants, so why not at least enjoy the ride.  
The next second she knows the tables are turned.

 

He toys with the idea of forcing her to kneel and blow him, but he's afraid she might bite. He turns her around, lugs and throws her over the hood. She resists, but he's stronger. He keeps her head down with one hand, while holding both of hers behind her back with the other. An almost _dangerous_ picture, but it gets his point across.

Knowing this is a fair trade doesn't appease her spirit at all. The cold metal feels scratchy against her cheek, soon enough though she finds it's the only thing left to cling to. She comes with no control on it, furious. _How much practice does it take to hold back so long?_ It's just a flash through her mind, then she evaporates again; the trees furl down towards her and the corners of the car begin to melt.

 

When it's clear that most of her sounds and moves are semi - conscious, or at least semi - _voluntary_ , he decides detention time is enough. He bends over, pulling her back up; he sticks his mouth on her neck and she has to steady herself with both hands, as she tries to evaluate the terms of the truce. Faintly gentler, a little bit slower. Hands wandering over her body, stroking her neck, her breasts, till one of them ends slid between her thighs. And _that mouth_ \- _can it be, dear god, that he's making love to her?_

Suddenly he draws back, turns her around and lays her sitting on the edge of the hood. He thinks she looks _broken_ , somehow, and knows this image won't leave him alone for some time.

Then, she curls her legs around him, pulling him close. He buries his face in her neck as she runs her hands through his hair.

"Let go", she whispers.  
And he does.

When she arches back slowly, letting out something close to a _howl_ , she's a gift from heaven Don knows he let slip away, too late and too fast.

 

* * *

 

After they're done, there's a long _non - eye contact_ standoff, during which they regain composure. Peggy's the first to come round.

" Well", she says, turning her head up, "I guess that was it."

His eyes flash for a second. "I guess that's what you get for helping a friend."

"Anytime."

"I can walk myself to the street, find a ride from here."

"Good."

"I should thank you..." \- she briefly panics he's gonna say "for the evening" but he stops.

"No. You paid for it."

If that's possible, the scorn in her voice makes him madder. "As much as _you_ did." He waits for it to be taken in before he throws out the rest. " I just hope at least now you're satisfied."

Could as well have punched her in the face.

"Get lost."

 

Lighting a cigarette on the sidewalk, a few minutes later, he catches a glimpse of her speeding past him. _This needs to be fixed_ , he thinks to himself. He has no idea how.


	2. Before I might be understood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title taken from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhOrXr9lRgY

Their whole interaction has become a bit blurry, more of a bunch of feelings than any clear string of dialogue. She opens one eye, but her vision's hindered by an arm hanging out of the bed. _Coming from underneath her head_. She evaluates her blouse's creasing status: irreparable. Then she sees the other arm, casually dropped around her waist.

_How the hell did that happen?_

Peggy was asleep before she knew it. Now she's floating in and out of it, only partly assimilating the surroundings.

 

Words come adrift in her mind, forming their own series of meanings. Unlinked snapshots she can't tell if they really happened or belong to a dream. A stray laugh, a drag of smoke held a second too long.

Years. It's been years.

Not that she'd hand it to him but sometimes, just in passing, her brow would frown a bit more.

 

In the end, this demonstration of affection must have seemed like a natural thing. After a bottle of rye, she guesses, and after a few aborted smiles, unmet gazes and lots, lots of things unsaid.

 

She was tired and tipsy and fast asleep, but suddenly she's aware of his hand on her navel - unsettling and oddly familiar at the same time.

In her trance, she decides she can let her mind sheer a little, unearth long forgotten images of the things this hand could have given her, in some other, unspeakable lifetime.

Against her better and all that, she goes on to touch it. And there must be some kind of upper power somewhere around, either helping or laughing at her, because she feels it twitch, then shift into hers stroking her palm. The tips of her fingers run onto his and their hands are suddenly woven, squeezing each other in some hopeless tiny battle while he's pulling her back, sticking her body completely on his. He clasps her hand tight and then he withdraws, tracing his way through all of her satin armor and straight into her fluid core. There. She's good now. He's found his place under her skin after all. "_Is this what you want?_ " his breath burns her ear. "_Yeah._"

His fingers start moving _very_ slowly, and she begins tripping in half sleep, falling, rising, suspended in a blissful limbo softly melting around her. She could stay there forever.

Deeper in he follows her as she inevitably unfolds, and he doesn't move, until she swears she's going to _vacuum_ all of him, lock him in and devour him like a hungry spider. He knows when she's there, and then his hand does her no favors.

She kind of expects him to push in from behind her, but he doesn't. Instead his fingers keep working art inside her, while his other hand plays with her face, squeezing it, holding her mouth open, letting her bite and suck and lick until she's nothing but a wet mess anymore, just a bunch of nerves and brains and a wet mess, a play dough ball bouncing up and down the bed to his rhythm.

He suddenly pauses firm inside her and runs the tip of his tongue from her collarbone to the lobe of her ear. Again. And again. And just as she's about to start _moaning_ , his fingers lock tight around her throat, barely letting her breathe. He takes up fucking her faster and she quivers, far beyond return. His grip's getting tighter and his hand's ripping her off; she can't take any air in and she wants to scream and she wants this _never_ to stop, _he's going to break her in two_ and her head will explode and there's _never_ going to be a seam strong enough - _this_ is _never going to be enough_ and there! She's finally torn apart with a crack that runs all along her spine and fiercely gushes out of her throat.

 

She's violently dragged out of her sleep by her own cry. So is he and his hand jounces from her belly to her face, turning her to his side. There's something very close to _panic_ in her eyes and her mouth is dry.

His fingers slide down to stroke her neck, just below the ear.

"It was a dream."

It takes some seconds for her breath to catch.

"A dream."

She swallows under his hand. "I know." _Thank god, I know_.

He turns her gently to the side and locks her fetal position with his.

"Nothing bad is going to happen to you", he whispers in her ear. "Not tonight."

She nods in that spastic way of hers.

"I know."

His arms tighten around her, and she's conscious of his lips on her temple. They both close their eyes and lie awake into the night.


	3. Gay old time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this title from here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTn14moHa4

Peggy's laughing, and saying all kinds of weird things, but she's _laughing loudly_ , and he had no idea he could make that happen.

The alcohol must be helping, too.

He doesn't know her body, but he knows so many other important things. It's an agreement between them, to do it as they'd always have - who can afford, after all, to rediscover America when it's already there.

 

_"So bravely you dragged me out of the gutter" , he'd said, shifting his weight between his hands, gripping the bar on each side of her._

_She'd held on to her drink, seemingly stolid to his presence behind her._

_" I thought that was your natural state."_

 

When she opened the door he scooped her up and banged her on the wall and she heard but never saw it closing. He's taking her right there.

Then she has him carry her to the bed and settles herself on top of him and she takes him there.

Then she lies next to him and he turns her around and starts nibbling her nape and down her spine and says "I can't seem to stop." And she says "No - one asked you to."

And finally he takes her against the headboard, with her face stuck on the wall.

Fallen on him on the bed she says "I'm drawing this to a close. I need to sleep." And he says "Definitely." And they fall asleep at once.

 

* * *

 

_Three agencies at the same hotel. Everybody out for a night in the town, and he had to bump into her in the almost empty in - house bar, where apparently they'd both ducked to nurse some kind of antisocial emergency._

_In parallel, but not in companionship, they worked diligently on getting totally wasted. And the little chat they finally picked soon digressed in very interesting, enlightening paths._

 

_"Gonna be playing Rhett Butler for long?" she scoffed when he even made an attempt to touch her head. " Cause next scene is taking me upstairs and fucking my brains out, which you're not up to, so."_

_" You'd love that." _

_" A tryst with some random upstart? Lifelong dream." _

_" All you've ever achieved in your life is struggling to be on my heels. Who are you judging now?" _

_It was refreshing, at last to hear aloud what they were really thinking of each other._

 

* * *

 

Later on they're awake, blown at the opposite sides of the bed, in the ring of staring each other out.

_"You smell like fresh cream in the morning" , he said earlier on that bed, circling her neck like a hound._

_She laughed but her voice faltered a bit._

_" That's only because you've missed me too much." _

_" Haven't you?" _

_" You left." _

_" Would you have come if I'd asked?" _

_" You wouldn't know." _

She's on her knees, fists clenched on the mattress, ready to dart at the starting shot. He leans back, poising his shoulders, lifting his jaw up.

Appraising her. Once more.

 

_" You can't stand that in so many years, I never danced on your lap." _

_" I never asked." _

_" Because you can't. I'm still like your last bastion or something, right? So pathetic." _

_Their exchange kept following a straight uplifting route._

 

Shock's the one thing they can't plea, but this doesn't make the air any lighter. Her eyes stay on him, burning, accusing.

 

_His hand pulling a tuft on her scalp, his mouth open onto hers. Her elbow falling off the corner of the bar -" Why", she uttered._

_" No other way to shut you up at last." _

 

"It's done now", he breaks the silence because he _can't bear_ it anymore.

He's not going to take all the blame.

"Is it?"

 

_He'd freed is mouth from hers just so as to take a breath and declare in haste:" I want to take you right here on the counter." Squeezed against the bar she'd looked around, as if thinking about it, then slowly lifted her eyes in her calmest delivery so far: "Come to my room."_

 

She watches him, wary, as he creeps closer. He rests a hand on her shoulder and she jolts at the touch. He doesn't remove it though.

She casts her gaze on the sheets.

"It's _okay_."

If no - one's going to say what he needs to hear, might as well say it himself.

"It's not", she states. And turns her head slowly, just enough so that her breath can merge with his.

It's not like he has an option now, is it.

 

He ends up going down on her in a ritual bearing none of their previous haste.

"You can't be this good to me", she scoffs softly. "I get disoriented."

He plays smug, "That's what I want."

A shadow flies over her brow.

He touches her face and leans over, speaking on her lips.

"Hush. Just for a while."

She nods.

And he starts fucking her, deep and real slow.

 

"Does this feel _so_ wrong?"

He means reassurance, but is actually asking for it. All she can do is shake her head, since there's nothing more eloquent she can come up with than the way he's hitting her _so_ right.

His tongue precedes his voice in her ear: "Tell me what else you want."

_" Everything." _

_Of course._

He laughs.

"Maybe that we can do."

 

* * *

 

When Peggy wakes, she's alone in the room. _Good_. Although " wakes" is a stretch, if she dozed it mustn't have been longer than forty minutes. She looks at the mess on the bed, and sighs. _Come all ye cowboys. Bring me your creaking vessels to break._

Biting back a smile, she decides she hasn't got the time to analyze. Now, or ever.

 

"Look at that. Who the hell is she gonna bury today?"

Don lifts his gaze from his newspaper, to spot her standing at the top of the stairs in a black pants suit and a white blouse. Black heels, straightened hair, sunglasses. A couple of manila folders underneath her arm. She scans the terrace looking for her team.

She doesn't look at him when she walks past their table.

His lips curve in a half smile. He has no idea when the next round's gonna be. Or what it will entail; even more, if he'll pull through it alive again. But right now, he likes what he sees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, enough with the smut. Next chapters are going to be a little bit more contemplative. Thanks for reading so far!


	4. Sun cut flat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I decided to complete these two and let them out of my laptop after a year!
> 
> This one was written as a mirror of chapter 2.  
> And ok, I know their thing was resolved in the end, and I was fine with that, but its strains keep drawing me in! Dylan title, obviously.

 

 

 

"_It's a myth that tracing logic all the way down to the truth is a cure for neuroses, or anything else._"  
"_Is there a cure for neuroses?_ "  
"_Love works._"

\- _Faraway places_

 

 

* * *

 

 

She'd never say a thing about her situation but maybe the fact that she was willing to spend more than ten minutes with him tonight was an indication. For the better or the worse, he can't tell.

Not that he'd ever say a lot.

The last time he saw her she was blonde; now, she's brown again, only with a few more lines around her eyes and a lipstick a bit too dark for her skin. Her voice’s become even firmer, except for those rare, rare moments when it gets really low, and which last for a fraction of a second.

Luckily they drank, not too much, but enough to smooth out the edges. Enough to make it seem natural that they ended up here, with none of the words _tired, house, sleep_ ever let out loud. Earlier, she looked oddly taller; it must have been the heels, not the booze, nor the _distorting lens of memory_ that’s altered her into this little snail - relaxed, spiraling elseward and he a straight line beside her, hardly a tangent – much smaller than he ever remembers her to be. 

(Not even the word _tonight_ , let alone the words _come, yes, sad_ ). 

He’d like to picture it, as if from above, but all he can see is the back of her head, all he can feel are stray hairs tickling his nose, and tiny fingers left clenched around the sleeve on his wrist - _clinging to the cloth, not the content_. 

It’s the booze, and there’s not one more hopeless trope he can take.

He looks up. He'd like a cigarette. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

She asked how he'd been doing. Her eyes smiled at his formalities, but her lips remained pressed. He studied her when she wasn't studying him, and one or two times both of them actually laughed - at separate moments, of course. 

He knew she was still married because he hadn't heard otherwise. When he asked about her job, her voice didn't miss that obnoxious pitch that always annoyed him a little. 

"So you're not back for good", she said and he couldn't tell if there was question, disappointment or relief in her voice. Or maybe nothing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In this position he can't help her scent hitting him, a mix of shampoo, Airwick and something undecipherable. Back in the days, he'd been so used to it he couldn't describe it, if asked. Only when he'd smelled it again had he realized what was missing from the air around him.

 

He doesn't think of that often, for it usually brings on an awkward uneasiness, uncanny, almost ( _"You can't help yourself"_ , Betty had told him once in disdain; for some reason, their voices now merge in his head sometimes, although she's every bit different from what Betty ever was), but right this moment - he can't help that too. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was unplanned.

He's been repeating it to himself ever since, as if impulsiveness might stand for any sort of account, or absolution. It was unplanned, but she had wanted him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Don always thought of sex as one of the soundest examples of the medium being the message. He still does, maybe less cynically, as he's finally come to appreciate the transient bond which lurks in shared sweat and lack of memory - but he's still a man to fall in love every six months, and god knows it's not infatuation what she provokes in him. 

She might have known well before him that sex can be invoked as another kind of language, just as reliable as words when they are elusive, or when they come up short. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He always liked to watch women’s expressions as they were reaching. Some unfold like rare flowers, and you suddenly feel included, let in on the secrets of some arcane fraternity, older than time itself. Others just savor their gain defying the world around them, and you feel yourself swell with pride to have been the one who unleashed that power in them.

That’s how he’d come to understand it, organized, neat, and in either case he always thought of it as the most engaging part. 

(There’s always the pro explicitness, of course, the one he’s so familiar with; but aside guilt, that never got him in any particularly complex thinking.)

And she’d been no predator, let alone prize or decoy; there had been no room for performance in her solemn immersion (or was it oblivion? Either way, beautiful, but he’d never tell her that). She'd been a riddle in complete control, leaving him shocked at her defenselessness in the ultimate second. A million thoughts had crossed his mind in that second; he'd thought of Stan watching that, _causing_ that every day, he'd wondered to which extent it was a thing of her own, or he'd played his part, and if that really was what it took for her to expose a crack so deep, even so shortly; he'd thought of his new woman too, whom he was still eagerly discovering. 

 

He'd always feed on the _Rapture_ and she knew that, yet when he'd attempted to speak - judgment clouded and all - she'd darted him a side - look like the horse in Guernica.

 

 

* * *

 

 

On a cold winter day, back in the early seventies, Don had found himself on a sidewalk and his eyes idly wandering as he waited for the traffic light to go green. They'd landed on a writing sprayed on an opposite wall, _Love's job is to invent unfamiliarity, my dear_ ; blasé as he'd found it, he'd snorted a laugh, his mind rambling from his most indifferent escapades to the meltdown of his marriages.

He'd felt a certain affinity to the aspiring poet's stolidity, one that stood as a proof for a lesson learnt the hard way - that's what he'd thought then, standing alone on a dirty sidewalk, his breath forming white clouds as horns blared around him, that it had been laborious, but learnt.

 

 

* * *

 

 

(She'd gripped him so hard, he'd felt his lungs were about to crumble.

She'd have liked that, a small collection of broken bones all hers, to play Jenga with any time she was idle.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

He can only assume, can't he, and she'll never know. They're not going to talk about it; not like it ever happened.

He could spend a lifetime tracing the motives. Or the alternative paths, the line between precept and practical settlement; but then, everyone needs their myths to get them through the day. _How else_ , he thinks, _how else are we going to get by_. 

He's never held her this close - or at all - since then.

 

Her breath has turned somewhat heavy, and he feels a little damp, which he realizes comes from a small trail of drool on his arm. And it's not an invincible urge of lust that keeps him awake, restlessly tempting him to disrupt her lull. It's only the thought of another chance at a glimpse of her startled twitch, her flash of yielding disarray. He does nothing though, reflecting on the odds; after that moment she'll either recoil or he might just crush her. 

In a few hours she'll wake up, composed as ever, and she'll make her way out of his bed. He'll be tight too; let her know that, above all, he made a kind choice to offer her his attention this night. For now Don just rests there, feeling her hand unfold around his wrist, waiting for the next drop to fall.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The writing on the wall is a true one, I’d put up a picture, but it’s not in English!


	5. Squeeze a cloud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is way too abstract, but it just came to me one day, and I’m kind of experimenting. I also kind of liked imagining them in there. Title form here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTSbZRDsGuA

 

 

_And if you get thirsty for water, we'll squeeze a cloud. If you get hungry for bread, we'll slaughter a nightingale._

\- _It was the face of May_ , 1961 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She woke up in the first moments of dawn, eyelids heavy and the sheets, sticking, following every turn of her body. Her breath came out labored and the room lay wrapped in a bluish, somewhat uncanny filter, coming refracted through the still drapes. All was silent and easy, emitting a strange feeling of resigned anticipation; the furniture, the tapestry, the floor.

She reluctantly dragged herself out of bed, feeling the taste of hovering dust in her mouth. Her arms stretched to the music of rolling vertebrae, a sound – and feeling - all too close to a defunct glockenspiel, as she absently took in the realities the new sunrise imposed. If there was one sure thing in the world, it was that the day was going to be a very hot one.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He was nowhere to be seen in the room. She wondered briefly, then went on to pull the curtains aside, closing her eyes as the hint of a morning breeze flied past her moist chest. And there he was, sitting down on the porch; eyes far - off, back against the banister, a soon – to – be butt burning between his fingers.

Just for a second she felt relieved, and that, she began thinking, might distantly relate - reversely, perversely - to what he might have felt that other night, when he’d looked for her and hadn’t – no, don’t think that now, no point really – 

"The hell are you doing out here?"

Her voice came out hoarse but soft, and he only jolted a bit, as if not really surprised, but warning her to make no noise. He nodded at her to go sit next to him, offering a vague gesture encompassing everything, yet nothing in particular, that stood outside the riddled boundary of their pedestal.

She moved closer and looked around bemused, not really taking in whatever process he was in the middle of. The trees were silent too, as was the silhouette of the mountains in the distance – they didn’t choose it, far incapable as they’d been of conducting any coherent transaction the previous night, and certainly of consciously picking a room, but it turned out the motel’s most isolated and the one, presumably, with the widest view. It was an old motel, and every detail in that setting could qualify for a part of a late Hopper imagery, eerily brought into life by that – that repeated, unyielding drone, shrill and tinny at the same time.

She carefully sat cross – legged on the porch beside him. Treated him with a questioning look, as he seemed much more familiar with the ambient curves and resonations than she could ever dream of achieving.

He gave her a once - over, slightly amused, then tilted his head back again. 

And hers twitched with the smallest of smiles, as she watched him inhale the last drag and throw the butt away, with a motion smooth - hell, might as well put _entranced_ there. She couldn't take in nature the way he could - she had no real experience of it. Yet she felt strangely drawn, fatefully floating into the crickets' opera with a light headache, either creeping or lingering, filtering everything. 

He didn't look back at her, but his shoulders were relaxed, his knuckles soft and for some reason it was then that she knew, in the firmest of ways, that they would never have to exchange a word about that moment - or the hours that had preceded it. 

A hundred pounds lighter, she sprawled out on the deck. Drowsy, but not closing her eyes; adjusting, rather, to the mesmerizing indigo that surrounded them, letting the coolness of the wood permeate her damp gown, and spread, through it, in every core of her body. 

"Jesus", she breathed. "It's like being inside a boiler in there."

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Some years ago", he suddenly said after some time, "not many, I dreamt of you." He dragged his voice slow, but firm. "You were in some - midwestern field, sitting on top of a straw ball. You wore a blue dress, your hair was long. The sun was – blazing, everything flickering from the heat and the light. But you were calm, and very serious. You just sat there looking at me, and you were eating grasshoppers."

"That's disgusting."

"You seemed to like 'em all right. You had them - piled on your lap, all buzzing and trying to jump out. But you caught back most of them. The ball oscillated but somehow you stayed there - you only complained, at some point, said you chewed 'em up good but you could still feel them bouncing inside you sometimes. When the winds changed."

He might or might not have seen her eyebrows come closer, but he went on anyway.

"You were a little girl."

"You don't know what I looked like as a little girl."

His eyes trailed away from hers and his lips curved with the slightest inkling of slyness; when he looked back, she knew she'd been holding her breath and that was the only detectable movement around - everything that morning seemed to be logy, loose, suspended in the impending prevalence of the all - conquering heat. 

"You picked one out and said, _if you hold on to this you'll live forever_" , he played out her head - shaking tic and her eyes softened, "You take it?"

"You didn't seem very keen to take no for an answer. But it kept jumping away. It was screeching, the poor thing. And I was - chasing it around, in the sere straw, and you just shrugged. I think you said _fucking dumbass_."

She blinked at his use of profanity. "How insightful."

"Totally undisturbed. Kept on eating the rest of them."

 

He'd went on to smiling now, small, of course, but real, in harmony with the gradual shift of the light. The colors evolved in their shades and the shapes turned clearer, but she was still feeling some kind of haze, tuned by the crickets' chirp that had drummed, incessant, his narration. 

She examined him solemnly, not quite sure of what he expected her reaction to be. Could as well have been made up on the spot, one of those fairy tales he loved weaving once; still, the image held a vehement lyricism that poked something in her, left her with a fay sense of hurt irreversibly tangled with pride. But then - she realized, not without surprise - there was none expectation at all, not any kind of manipulated goal. 

"And there I worried I'd might do him harm", she thought - not that it really was about that. 

Nothing was ever really about that; everything rather a metaphor, a study of ways - the empty glasses, the screams, the italian globe she kept on her desk. Her holiday phone calls and his rare postcards, the creased sheets inside or the last dew drops on the cypress' leaves, all rambling metaphors for what could unfold, as seemed, in less than a second behind someone's eyes, provided they were peaceful enough.

She might have gone for less poetic vehicles herself, but quaint was a word she'd apply on so many things about him, and wasn't about to contest at that moment.

"Did you catch it?"

"I don't remember."

"So how does it end?"

He squinted a bit and then pulled out his packet, lit another one as he turned back to the pastoral postcard before them.

 

The shapes were all sharp now, the awning was brown and the road, down far, grey again; the sky still low but faintly brighter. The sun had almost come up from behind the hills, but it would take some time for the beams to hit the right angle and reach them. And as the world evaporated around, she closed her eyes smiling, letting the crisp darkness envelop her, to the quaky beats of the insects' fading song.

 

 

 

 


End file.
